“I didn’t study for the test. Do you think you could send me a picture of the answers” This one single line has been heard in schools everywhere. The pressure on students to get good grades leaves a negative effect on students. The pressure starts while they are young and builds up as students get older. Students can only take so much pressure until they go through a burn out. This is what often leads to some students dropping out of high school. The pressure that is put on students to get good grades often leads to depression, anger, and cheating.
Cheating is a method that is commonly used when students want to receive a good grade on a test. They often resort to cheating because it is highly effective and their effort is no*t necessary. Cheating holds a big risk if the student gets caught. Students do not contemplate what can happen if they are caught cheating. “School isn’t about education anymore; it’s about getting good grades and that increases pressure”. (Ho 1) The amount of academic cheating has drastically risen within the last 50 years among students all around the world. Technology has also advanced to the point where a click of a touchscreen can share answers to the most recent test or even the actual test. Another way that students choose to cheat is by taking brain performance-enhancing drugs. Adderall is one of those brain performance-enhancing drugs. It allows the mind to focus extensively for a certain amount of time. Students from K to 12th grade use this “medication” to help them for a long night or to do better on a big test. Students who are legitimately diagnosed with ADHD often sell their Adderall pills. “Adderall is abused and even in college take more than marijuana and it’s easier to get”.(Cooper 1) Qu...
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...n students may motivate them to do better, it often does more damage than good. Parents, teachers, and colleges should realize that a student experiences burn outs and will result in a loss of motivation caused by the pressure put on them.
Works Cited
Ho, Linette. “School isn’t about education any more; it’s about getting good grades and that increases pressure.” The Vancouver Sun. Postmedia Network, 27 March. 2012. Web
Palmer, Barbara. “Pressure for good grades often leads to high stress, cheating, professors say.” Standford Report. Standford University. 23 Feb. 2005. Web.
Powell, Kathryn. “Stressed and Obsessed Part 5: the effects of stress on student life”. The Online Gargoyle. University of Illinois Laboratory High School, 2 May. 2013. Web.
Pratt, Richard. “Depression weighs heavily on college students.” The Gazette. 3 March 2014. Web.
Grades do motivate students to do better but, grades cause students to want to get a good grade instead of fully mastering the material. They look at school just trying to pass which promotes cheating on tests and homework. They also will choose the material that is the easiest and choose a class with a professor who doesn’t care to raise their GPA. School is supposed to be about learning and understanding new material to help gain knowledge and a new way of thinking.
Ultimately, by these students tieing their self image to getting the highest possible grade it can lead them to some serious Problems, the students not learning to their full potential, and negatively affect their career. Grades play a role in education but grades should not define a student like it does today.
The “push to be perfect” (Thomas) is at an all-time high. Pressure for perfection from peers, parents, teachers and coaches is so unreasonably high that many students don’t think that they will ever be able to achieve it. A student feels that it is impossible to get good grades, be athletic, in multiple organizations, and most of all appear to be happy. Students have turned to cheating, drug/ alcohol abuse, and even suicide to try and cope. They are competing with friends for top spots, and believe that if they don’t beat them, they are a failure. Not only other students, but parents play a big roll, too. Their own parents and the parents of their peers will compare kids. New Trier High School’s Jim Conroy said that the biggest problem about pressure comes from the parents who compare (Robbins). With all...
However, such accusations such as laziness and entitlement, although common, have been prevalent amongst those of college age as proven in “A’s for Everyone.” Shepard had investigated the cause behind this and had put the blame on grade inflation in the years prior to entering college, the pressure to get superb grades due to high tuition costs, and most importantly the belief that “effort” constitutes a grade bonus. However, if one has entered the school system in America, one could see the relative ease in which one could improve their grades through inordinate amounts of extra credit. Multiple students have heard and even seen fellow students ask their parents to even come in for meetings of which equate to blaming their child’s poor grades on the teacher and harassing said teacher to allow their child, soon to be a hardworking, productive citizen of society, to get the “grade they
Zinsser, William. “College Pressure.” The Norton Reader. 13th ed. Ed. Linda H. Peterson. New York: Norton, 2013. 380-388. Print
The author believes that students in the current generation are under more pressure than preceding ones. “William Alexander, director of Penn’s counseling and psychological services stated, ‘A small setback used to mean disappointment…’ Now? ‘For some students, a mistake has incredible meaning.’” The specialists that the author chooses to cite are all credible, which helps to build her view on this subject. The research that Scelfo uses also illustrates the fact that a student’s family plays a big role in their overall mindset. For example, Alice Miller, a famous psychologist, observed that “…some especially intelligent and sensitive children can become so attuned to parents’ expectations that they do whatever it takes to fulfill those expectations- at the expense of their own feelings and needs.” Being able to support her argument with the findings of psychologists and doctors avails Scelfo in swaying the reader’s
That stomach churning feeling of guilt for many seems to appear as a small price to pay when completing an act of academic dishonesty. Colleen Wenke wrote an essay on cheating eighteen years ago called “Too Much Pressure”. In the past fifty years, the number of students who admit to cheating has increased fifty to seventy percent(Gaffe). Many people wonder what leads the students to make this unjust decision. Today, the reason for a rise in cheaters is because of how easy it has become, leading many students to the false conclusion that they aren’t breaking any rules; It is simply viewed as a shortcut to success in the classroom and beyond.
The first point that Etelson makes in her article is about the pressure that students are under today, she often refers to it as “educational pressure cooker” (Etelson, 2015). Today, every student is overwhelmed with pressure. Middle class students have pressure to get into a top college. Poor students feel
If an individual is provided resources and surrounded by people who believe they are capable of goal achievement, said individual is more likely to experienced increases in determination and subsequent improvement in performance and well-being. For example, research has shown that students enrolled in positive learning environments where teachers incorporate strategies meant to meet students' motivational needs are more likely to become responsible learners who display a determination to succeed. In the essay "College Pressures" by William Zinsser, the pressures faced by college students at Yale are studied. The pressures include the need to develop time management and study skills appropriate for college work, the desire for good grades, the desire to meet parents' expectations, and the need to find employment in a competitive job market after
Modern students face many pressures for academic success. They are often unwilling to disappoint their parents or spouses. Some fear that not cheating will weaken a student’s ability to compete with their peers. They rationalize their unethical behavior, unwilling to accept a poor grade, consequently justifying cheating as the only means to that end.
Joy Alonso said “We all have tons of pressure on us, and inevitably we neglect some things-” Alonso's speech overall is pretty positive to tests but what I think she is trying to say at this point is that tests can cause pressure in which we forgot to study or do something else. There is a lot of pressure to get good grades so that you can go to a good college, if someone has so much pressure they could get sick, or freak out when the test comes and doesn't do as well as they could. They can also be pressure and stress when you have still have half the questions to complete on the SAT but you only have 10 minutes to finish.
This placed much of the burden of recognizing academic talent on the high schools. Hindering a student’s performance with a bad grade in the middle of the year can make them give up for the rest of the year. Once a student has received a bad grade, they might lose faith in their academic ability. By giving up, a student does not reflect their academic ability and their bad grades are not based on what they learned.
Everyone has cheated on something at some point in their life, whether it is in a game, on a test, or in a relationship, everyone has done it. Cheating is anything that involves breaking a rule, or getting an unfair advantage. Schools are one of the most popular places people cheat. Many people down play cheating and use excuses like, “He shouldn’t have let me see his paper,” or, “I am just using my resources wisely.” But, what causes people to cheat? Students cheat in school because of laziness, high standards or pressure to do well, and misunderstanding.
There are multiple causes when it comes to stressed out students. First consider where the pressure is coming from for students to get good grades. Parents and teachers tend to be the main suspects. Parents want to see their kids succeed in everything they do and grades are no different. Some students see a bad grade as them failing their parents because their parents believe in them so much (Weissbourd, 2011). Teachers have multiple reasons why they want to see their ...
Gregory.J.R, Frazer.H. (1986). An Academic Stress Scale: Identification and Rated Importance Of Academic Stressors, 59, 2-6.